Alumni news

The 19th Annual Marian University Catholic High School Choral Fest will be held on Thursday, November 20 at 7:00 p.m. in the Bishop Chartrand Memorial Chapel at Marian University. This event brings together choirs from Indianapolis Catholic high schools, Oldenburg Academy from Oldenburg, Indiana, and Central Catholic High School in Lafayette, Indiana.

This year, the concert will combine the choirs from these schools into one large choir, reminiscent of the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) Songfest tradition of the 1950s and 1960s. Many Catholics from the Indianapolis area will remember this gathering of thousands of grade school students at the Butler Fieldhouse to sing hymns and popular songs of the day. The inaugural concert happened in 1958.

Marian University students will join the hundreds of high school students to sing a program of sacred music. The highlight of the evening will be the world premiere of an arrangement by Philip Kern, titled Good Christians All Rejoice (with Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella). Kern serves as associate professor of music at Marian University and is well known across the nation as a composer and arranger of choral music.

The concert will also include a performance by the Marian University Sacred Choir. New this year, the students of the Bishop Simon Bruté College Seminary have formed a Schola Cantorum Choir and will sing at the concert.

This event is free and open to the public and students will also be accepting donations for the Holy Family Shelter at the door.